Flight inspection time

Saturday afternoon saw the regular navaid inspection activities being undertaken at Wellington.

At it's simplest, it appears the navaid inspection involves checking that navaids are calibrated correctly, using an aircraft, in this case a Piper PA-42-1000 Cheyanne, appropriately registered ZK-FIS and registered to the Airways Corporation of New Zealand [provider of all ATC and AFIS/ FIS services in New Zealand].

Inspection runs consist of a number of approaches testing different navaids and appear to all be conducted at fairly high speed and definitely not configured for landing... 😀 Looks like fun times for the crew, although I imagine hard [and exacting] work also!

I'd be very keen to find out more, so if anyone who has any first-hand knowledge of this if happy to provide some details, I'd be keen to hear from you. Perhaps I could put up a post providing more details of this essential calibration service.

Anyway, here are a couple of photos on ZK-FIS as it overshoots after an inspection run.

Piper PA-42-1000 Cheyanne, ZK-FIS, registered to Airways Corporation of NZ

Piper PA-42-1000 Cheyanne, ZK-FIS, registered to Airways Corporation of NZ

Navaid calibration

There was nothing much of note flying around today except a Piper PA42-100 Cheyenne, ZK-FIS. This aircraft is operated by the Airways Corporation of NZ and is engaged in navaid calibration duties.

The flight looks like a bit of fun for the crew, with part of the Flightradar24 trace shown below!

Piper PA42-100 Cheyenne, ZK-FIS, operated by the Airways Corporation of NZ

Partial Flightradar24.com trace of ZK-FIS flight

Two Aussies @ Wellington

There have been a couple of new Aussie registered aircraft at Wellington in the past few days.

The first is the arrival of Vincent Aviation's latest British Aerospace Jetstream J32, VH-OTP. I assume this will be going on to the NZ register shortly along with a repaint?

The second was a Piper PA42-1000 Cheyenne, VH-BUR. This aircraft is registered to Burley Aircraft of a NSW, Australia address. It is over here performing navaid checks for the Airways Corp of New Zealand.

Calibration, lighties and a big fence

It was a fairly quiet day at the airfield today. The weather was better this morning, but from late morning onwards there was a fair amount of low cloud hanging around which tended to curtail things. Another curtailing factor was an unannounced round of airfield navaid calibration.

The calibration is necessary to ensure that the approach aids are still functioning to the specified standards, but side effects include interruptions to other traffic [especially VFR flights like the aero club's flights!].

Anyway, the aircraft being used [pictured below] is a Vincent Aviation Jetstream J31, ZK-JSH, on behalf of the Airways Corporation of NZ.

Other aircraft from today include a Robinson R22 Beta, ZK-HHQ and registered to Heliflite of an Auckland address and a Piper PA18 Cub, ZK-BQY which is also registered to an Auckland address.

The last photo shows the new fence that has sprung up around the old aero club hanger which the the airport company [Wellington International Airport Ltd - WIAL] is preparing to demolish. A real shame...

Two departures

Here are photos of two aircraft departing Wellington today. The first is the Cessna 510 Citation Mustang, ZK-MUS, registered to Acermus Aero Ltd of a Wellington address.

The second is British Aerospace Jetstream 31, ZK-JSH, registered to Vincent Aviation Ltd. This aircraft conducted several flights today on navaid calibration tests for the Airways Corporation.

WAC Open Day 2009 #12: Wrap up

In this final post from the open day, a brief wrap up is in order. It was a wonderful day, with a steady stream of visitors, reasonable weather and a load of good aircraft to see.

It struck me just how privileged we were. In addition to our own fleet [PA38's, C172, PA32, PA28's, C206], we had 2 warbirds [Corsair and Nanchang], 2 helicopters [R44 and BK117], 4 multi-engined airliners [J32, SA227, DHC-8, B737] and others including the SR22, P2002, CT4/E, plus airport fire/rescue, Aviation Security display, a local technical book vendor, Airways Corporation of New Zealand, Girl Guides [selling biscuits!], assistance from the airport company and others! Thanks too all of you for your support, and not too bad for a small aero club [a lot of work by Josie and her team]!!

Here are a few random pictures taken on the day... nothing to do with the open day itself. Top to bottom are Air New Zealand A320, Qantas B737 and CTC Diamond DA20-C1.

WAC Open Day # 4: Other visitors

In addition to visiting aircraft, we had a number of other visitors. These included the Aviation Security Service who had a display and put on a demonstration with one of their bomb detector dogs [the dog was also good at sniffing out the bangers on the BBQ :-)], and the airport fire/rescure service who bought out a fire appliance and rescue boat. Unfortunately I ran out of battery life before the demonstration.

The Airways Corporation [provider of all Air Traffic Services in New Zealand] provided a really good display and sponsored a couple of the spot prizes. Capital Books had their wares available, particularly a good range of aviation related books. Our friends from Flight Experience were also keen to promote their public B737 type simulator also.